Upside downcast
by Lanny-Sama
Summary: A small insight on my version of IDW Shattered Glass. 1) Whirl reflects on the latest unsuccessful 'session' with his patient. He just wishes he would be able to get a word from the orange mech, even if it was just his name... 2) Pharma is interrupted during his afternoon fuel by his favourite plaything.
1. Chapter 1

The small off-world base was quiet, and the hallway lights were dimmed in synchronisation with the day-night cycle on the small asteroid. Whirl's head felt heavy and slow. His single optic was burning with heat, and it wouldn't be long before his protection systems would forcefully throw them offline.

He fumbled with the triple-encrypted locks, and latched all the security measures closed just as Starscream preferred. With his restored hand, he authorised the final lockdown procedures, and waited for the security check to come throug. A quick look at his chronometer told that almost an entire Cybetronian cycle had passed, even though it felt like only a few breems to Whirl.

The last lock clicked shut, and there was a hum as the slow-cells activated. Whirl exvented, and steadied himself against the wall. He should have long grown used to it by now, that drain of energy and time, but as always, he felt like he had taken a trip through a compactor.

Whirl looked up, and stared into the cell he had just exited. His patient was drooling a thin line of lubricant from behind a thick muzzle, his orange arms bound tightly to his frame, and his modified optics staring unseeingly into the cell. Small traces of rust were peeking out from between the locks, and Whirl doubted the bindings had ever been opened since their first application.

"Still trying to work with that thing?"

Whirl looked up, and found Brainstorm looking back at him. The overly careful scientist's plating was damp with cleansers, and he looked about as tired as Whirl felt.

Whirl heaved a sigh and offlined his optic. "He is not a thing," He repeats for what must be the thousandth time. "Even if that's what the Functionalists wanted him to think that – programmed him to think that... He's a mech, and I'm not giving up yet."

"Well, I suppose... If you say so." Brainstorm said meekly, and he rubbed his hands as if cleaning them under a stream of solvent. Whirl had more than a few theories as to Brainstorm's little habit. It took a very strong bot to infiltrate the Autobots, and an even stronger bot to uphold the act of a moralless scientist when his messages began to go unanswered. Brainstorm didn't like to talk about his time with the Autobots, and this was most certainly not the time to address it.

"I still think I made a mistake." Brainstorm said. "I should have destroyed it as soon as I knew what it was. It's not going to bring anything good to this war, nothing at all." Whirl didn't reply.

Brainstorm had broken his million-year cover to steal the pod and bring it to the Decepticons.

In all honesty, Whirl was still amazed that the scientist had been able to escape. It had been an amazing orchestra of luck and circumstance, almost to the point of absurdity.

The only help he'd gotten had been from the self appointed 'Decepticon Justice Devision', more commonly known as 'the defect newsparks that imprinted on Megatron'. Primus only knows how the five glitched bots had found their way so far into deepspace. Early in the war, Megatron had sent them to Messatine with the mission to keep an eye on a small abandoned Autobot base, mostly just to get them out of the line of fire. A blind mech, a mute mech, two mecha with severe fuel-pump problems and a fanatic did not belong on the frontlines.

But somehow, the band of impaired misfits had managed to get both Brainstorm and his pod on board of their little ship and fly off without the Autobots noticing. Whirl could still barely believe it.

Inside of the pod, they had found the orange bot, completely tangled in restrictive wiring, tied with chains from head to toe, and blinded with an optical inhibitor. A bit of research from a reluctant Trepan had shown that the mech was nearly labotomised. Not even a name was left in the ruin of a brainmodule, and to all appearances, the mech was comatose.

Unfortunately, that had turned out to be a well disguised trap.

As soon as the orange mech had gotten untied, and someone had removed his optical inhibitor, the mech had shown off his altmode. Maybe he had been a fusion cannon or a spark-snuffer at one point, but the Autobot experiments had warped his altmode to something thoroughly unrecognisable, and a hundred times more dangerous. They still didn't know how he did what he did.

Methodically and clean, the round-lensed optics had picked out a target, and eliminated it. Flywheels had been one of the first victims, closely followed by Blip and Blackshadow. Just small quick flashes of light, and bots would crumple like dolls, their systems cycling to an immediate halt with sickly 'grnks'.

Whirl had been in the room, frozen like an old computer as the yellowed optic lenses turned to target him. He had thought his life was over at that point- standing like a dolt in the middle of the room and awaiting the final shot.

Instead, the mech-turned weapon had whirred, clicked, and transformed back, settling a benign but thoroughly unsettling stare on Whirl's optic. Even when other bots had entered, the mech had not reacted. Trepan had even been able to slide his needles into the mech's neck without a single twitch- so fascinated did the orange bot seem to be by Whirl's faceless helm.

Apparently, his empurata had turned out to be good for something after all. Just like Optimus had promised when he had been ushered into the operating room, where Chromedome was greeting him with a chipper wave-...Whirl abruptly turned to Brainstorm, forcing the memories to the back of his mind. "How is Overlord by the way?"

Brainstorm's picked at some loose paint on his hand, and he looked at a spot on the wall. "It's... better, I guess. Deadlock came by. They talked."

Whirl tilted his head in surprise, the movement made it feel heavier. "What. Those two? They were on 'kill on sight' terms the last time I saw them. What changed?"

Brainstorm shrugged. "I think Overlord's lost his taste for Primus after the whole... you know... the whole "Gee-nine" business. Deadlock came in with the usual slandering of Primus' name, and Overlord actually seemed to go along with it instead of going into full-on preach mode." Brainstorm frowned. "Then they both trashed Overlord's old altar. I'm not sure if I can call it an achievement."

"With how much Overlord has been through, it's an understandable development if you ask me." Whirl said. "It's often the extreme fanatics that take the hardest falls when they can't justify their beliefs anymore."

"Hm." Brainstorm responded. Both mecha looked at the restrained mech inside of the room, and Whirl's optic started dimming by itself again. Brainstorm put an impeccably clean hand on his shoulder and gave him a little shake. "Do you want me to haul you over to your quarters?"

Whirl huffed, and let his entire weight sag against the scientist with a teasing flash of his optic. "Yes please."

Brainstorm chuckled good naturedly as he helped Whirl to his quarters, and the light-pink helicopter gave the scientist a small wave before going inside and collapsing on his berth. He made a mental note to hang around the scientist a little more, the mech could use friendly company.

His processor was still churning over the small notes and details from his session with the mystery mech, but he couldn't find the strength to get up and write them down.

Maybe tomorrow would be a day with progress. Maybe he would finally get to know the mech's name, or an answer to the questions he repeated day after day. Whirl sighed, and looked at the light denta-marks that marred his non-clawed hand.

Only time would tell.


	2. Chapter 2

Pharma was busy adding additives to his energon when the ping on his console came through. Pharma let out a suffering sigh. There was always something that interrupted his fuel-moments. He carefully set the perfectly heated cup next to his paperwork, and activated his terminald.

The incoming was heavily encrypted in a way that was so obviously Decepticon that the sender could just as well have sent it without an encryption at all. Pharma chuckled. Tarn was about as subtle and secretive as a Turbofox with a noisemaker strapped to its back.

Pharma smiled, and set his stacks of paperwork to the side, making sure to lock the datapads as he did so. First Aid was always dying to take a look at his notes, especially the ones about the still in-development rust-virus, but it would be a very long time before he would allow that psychotic glitch anywhere near a harmful isotope. Creating deadly diseases for warfare was one thing, handing it to a psychotic coworker was another. Pharma had no doubts that First-Aid would manage to turn a simple bio-weapon into a massacre, and then forget to create an antidote.

Pharma would give First-Aid the credit when the formula was finished -let the dolt rake in the praise and bounty, and keep Pharma safe and forgotten on Delphi. He'd managed to get rid of Ratchet in a similar manner, and who was to say that that trick wouldn't work a second time? In a few vorn's time, he would have a perfect quiet little base, far away from the dreadful war, swimming in carefully hidden luxury.

Pharma nodded contentedly, and settled himself into the soft padding of his chair. Contrary to popular belief, climbing the proverbial ladder of power in the Autobots was not really something you wanted.

Optimus Prime was always so deceptively calm and silent- Pharma often thought of him as the eye of a storm, a quiet centre to a raging inferno of destruction and rage. Pharma had no wish at all to be 'recommended' for his efforts for the Autobot cause. Recommended meant promoted, promoted meant more work, more work meant more expectations, more expectations meant inevitable disappointment from the mech that could decapitate someone with his bare hands.

So yes, Pharma was perfectly content with his little clinic on the backwater planet Messatine. As soon as the rust-virus was done, he would shine up First-Aid's contribution until it looked like the mech had done it all by himself, and then Optimus would order the insane little menace away from Delphi. First-Aid and Ratchet would probably hit it off very well, with how many interests they shared. Pharma shuddered. He hoped to finish his work soon – First-Aid's eerie fascination with Autobot badges and their 'creative' application always made him a little nervous.

The ping from Tarn came in again, and Pharma was startled from his musings.

"Oh dear me." He muttered good naturedly to himself, and he gave himself a small slap on the hand. "You got sidetracked again Pharma, tut tut! You should be more alert from now on."

He opened the message on his console, and smiled at the childish message. It was obvious that none of the Decepticons had taken any time out of their schedule to teach their malfunctioning little cretins how to write. For all they preached to make the world a better place where everyone had a choice in their career, they sure did not seem to care about educating their new-sparks.

"Farma-" Tarn's message started, and Pharma smiled broader at the misspelling of his name. "-I am stending outsaid in te usual spot. Plees hurry, I hafe da payment."

Pharma hummed, and took a sip from the cube he had prepared for himself. The additives he had used in them were rare and rich, and he doubted that even Optimus Prime had access to them. It had been a wonderful little gift from Ambulon, in return for keeping his mouth shut about the nurse's status as a Decepticon defector. Optimus Prime did not take kindly to turncoats- not even when they came to join him in his fight. Pharma thought it was rather counter-intuitive to punish new soldiers, but he had never been forged to take command of an army, so perhaps that was why it seemed like such a wasteful decision to him.

Pharma pushed his luxury chair back, and checked the middle drawer of his desk. A collection of lightly damaged T-cogs was looking back at him, and he picked out a few older models. He took another slow sip from his energon and then closed the lid. He would finish the rest later as he looked over Tarn's payment, as much as he would have liked to ignore Tarn's message and continue his afternoon fuel, Tarn was liable to come knocking at he door and ruin everything. Pharma put the T-cogs into his subspace, and locked the drawers of his desk.

"I will arrive in approximatively five breems." He typed back to Tarn, making sure to use impeccable grammar. He should hurry. The Red Rust needed quite some work, and he still hadn't found a trigger for the disease that would allow for the perfect spread without immediately infecting Autobot troops.

He mulled it over as he methodically went through his quarters, hiding away the luxuries he kept all to himself. First-Aid was a terrible snitch, and Ambulon would probably love to get a little dirt on Pharma for owning a berth more luscious than the standard supply.

He put away the salvaged books from the Senate's private libraries, flipped the priceless holo-paintings off, pushed away his auto-pede detailed, and hid it all under a carefully measured heap of clutter.

Whoever said that hoarding scraps was a bad habit knew absolutely nothing about hiding valuables.

His console pinged. Tarn again. Pharma sighed. Impatience was such an obnoxious trait. "Farma, plees hurrie- Kayon is aksing were I am!"

Pharma rolled his optics and stood up. He exited his quarters, and locked the door with the five locks he had acquired over the tide of the war. He liked to think that they weren't necessary- that the bots he helped to rise in rank remembered him well and would choose his usefulness over his death- but one could never be sure with Autobots.

Pharma leisurely marched his way through the clinic, and made a three breem detour to avoid the room where First-Aid was entertaining a patient. The screams followed him for quite some time, and as always, they dampened his mood considerably. His next venture for luxury would be a bit more soundproofing around the operating rooms.

Outside of Delphi, the snow was falling in thick clumps, almost as big as the tip of his finger. Pharma watched them drift down as he strolled to the agreed meeting spot- on occasion stopping to catch a big flake on the tip of his glossa.

It took ten breems to reach Tarn.

The huge tankformer was waiting miserably in the snow at their usual meeting spot- a nice little communicative deadzone between their bases, and hidden between two mounds of snow. Pharma sometimes wondered if Tarn knew what the mech-shaped lumps in those mounds were. The tankformer was probably too dim to make the connection, and Pharma had an idea that he wouldn't want to meet here anyone if he knew.

Tarn was trembling so hard that Pharma could hear him rattle before he spotted him. Tarn's dumb blue optics went from a hollow black to a feverishly shine when they spotted Pharma, and the ungainly tank toddled up to him with shaking steps. If he had had a tail, it would have been wagging wildly.

"Pharma!" He called out, and his hands were shaking too when he reached out to the Autobot doctor. "I ran out, I ran out again- and I need to transform but my cog's dried up, it's not working, and it hurts! N-Nickel didn't want to look at it, and it hurts so much!"

Pharma crouched in the snow with the trembling tank, and pulled the shivering mass close to him. "Oh Tarn... Poor bitlet. You transformed too much again. Didn't I tell you to calm it down? I'm can't keep fixing you forever..."

He could. With ease. First-Aid killed more patients than he saved, and the procedure to take a T-cog from a corpse was easy. Pharma's collection grew with at least five T-cogs a day, and there was barely any mech that needed a replacement.

"Pharma, I-I tried not to, but then it got so bad." Tarn whimpered and his broken T-cog made a terrible noise as a puff of smoke erupted from between the gaps in his armour. "I b-broke it too quick, because I couldn't stop once I started. I was itchy, but the transforming made it go away, and it felt so good Pharma, it felt so good!"

Pharma shook his head softly. "Oh Tarn." He said. "I can't take T-cogs for you anymore if you keep wasting them like this. Bots will get suspicious..."

Apparently, Tarn found this no problem. His bright optics stared right into Pharma's, and he vibrated with excitement. "Oh, no Pharma!" Tarn whispered exitedly. "I found a solution, to last longer I mean. If I just got more payment, better payment, they wouldn't mind, right? Look- I got stuff!"

He pulled out of Pharma's loose hug and started yanking stuff straight from his subspace. "Here- I brought so much stuff- all very good too! Took it from... from the screaming mech! He said it was 'vit- ahl' or something, lots of long word, complicated stuff-..."

Pharma watched with wide-optics as Tarn spilled a week worth of vital Decepticon intel into the snow. Pharma only barely managed to keep his mouth from dropping open as he checked the data on one of the dataslugs.

The datasticks Tarn had stolen were not copies. These were near-finished blueprints that had been snagged from under the nose of the Constructicons themselves. Underneath the blueprints, Pharma caught sight of a datapad filled with the recorded comm-chatter of the last five cycles.

Compared to what Tarn usually brought in as 'payment', this was a proverbial goldmine. Pharma had been expecting a little more than usual – at their last meeting he had insinuated that he wouldn't supply any more T-cogs if Tarn didn't step up his game – but this blew his expectations away. The last few of Tarn's 'payments' had all been vague rumours, half-empty energon cubes, busted circuit boosters and a few credits. Pharma had mostly given into the trade just to have that large tankformer begging at his pedes.

Pharma looked at Tarn, and he hoped that the slight twinge of pity didn't reach his faceplate. Decepticon or not, Tarn was going to pay for his betrayal, most likely with his spark.

"Good, right?" Tarn sounded a little out of it, and his T-cog kept making horrible sounds as it broke apart inside of his body. "Please tell me it's enough- I couldn't get anymore boosters, and I couldn't save up fuel because I was gonna go offline. It's good, isnt it?"

Pharma looked at the Decepticon, and knew that this would be the last time he would be performing a T-cog transplant on the big lumbering sparkling. It was honestly baffling that Megatron had allowed this deluded mech into his army at all. Then again, there were no more Glitch-clinics to take care of these type of mecha anymore, were there?

Pharma couldn't really bring himself to laugh at the poor fool that was kneeling in the snow before him. Tarn had been fun to play with, and now he had actually turned himself into a benefit for the Autobot cause – at the whim of a stress-relieving addiction.

He kneeled next to Tarn in the snow, and took the T-cogs out of his subspace. Tarn's optics flicked from the T-cogs to his face, and his excitement was beaming out from under the battle-mask he wore. Pharma stroked a hand over Tarn's treads and smiled.

"Yes. This is very good Tarn." Pharma said, and he made sure to add glyphs of approval and amazement. "I didn't expect you to get so much! I don't even think I took enough T-cogs with me to pay you back for all this."

"Really?" Tarn almost whimpered with excitement. "How many?" He asked.

Pharma though of the drawer filled with T-cogs. "At least thirty." He pushed at Tarn, and the tankformer immediately laid down, baring the armour that hid his broken T-cog.

"Thirty!" Tarn said. He was looking at his hands, counting the T-cogs with his fingers. "That's... that's three times my two hands!" He exclaimed. "That's so much-!"

"You deserve it." Pharma said quietly. He worked quickly, and popped the new T-cog into Tarn's body. He had barely snapped the panel closed before Tarn was transforming like a madmech, spewing snow and sparks everywhere. Pharma got a facefull of snow, and he spluttered as he retreated from the tankformer. He wiped the snow from his frame with a frown. No manners whatsoever!

Pharma stood back and watched for a while as the Decepticon worked himself into a high. Tank, robot, tank, robot, tank... The snow around him was starting to melt. Pharma could hear the first signs of a stresses T-cog already.

It was really unfortunate that Tarn was going to die so soon, because of something so... meaningless. Pharma found it sad to see someone so lost to their urges, though he was glad that the mech hadn't found relief in more dangerous acts- like tearing apart Autobots, or interfacing, or a horrendous combination of both forementioned acts.

He could imagine that Tarn could have been a monster worthy of Hound if it hadn't been for the admiration of Megatron that the tank carried.

Tank, robot, tank, robot, long shuddering moan, tank, robot, tank, robot...

"Don't wear it out immediately." Pharma called out jokingly, but Tarn didn't slow for a second. Pharma busied himself with picking the valuable datasticks from the snow and placing them in his subspace. "I am going back to my base. The T-cogs are all yours, I will install them for you whenever you want."

Tarn didn't answer, and Pharma turned back to Delphi. The sounds of desperate transformation sequences followed him as he strolled back to his work.

When he arrived, First-Aid was still busy. Ambulon greeted him from where he was organising spare parts, and Pharma mumbled a greeting back as he moved to his quarters. He sat in his chair, and played a little with the cube he had left before his meeting with Tarn.

Pharma felt a small sting of sadness as he thought of the young Decepticon transforming himself into stasis out in the snow. He would miss Tarn's visits. Pharma grabbed his notes for the rust virus, and stared at the words. The sounds of Tarn's transformations replayed in his processor, and he smiled a small smile as an idea took root.

"Oh Tarn, you shortlived piece of inspiration." He mumbled to himself, before bending over his work, and banning the Decepticon from his mind.


End file.
